Why FARGO Is My Favorite Film (Part 1)

Initially, you root a little for Lundegaard. He’s constantly condescended to by his arrogant father-in-law, Wade Gustafson, the wealthy owner of the Minneapolis car lot where he works as a salesman. Lundegaard is in desperate straits, in need of money to get him out of some legal trouble (trouble he is hiding from everyone in his life). He wants his father-in-law to give him some money to buy a parking lot, telling him it is an investment for his family’s future. He asks for a loan but is not confident he will get it. So he hatches a simultaneous plot to have his wife (gently) kidnapped (“a ‘no rough stuff’ kind of deal”) by crooks he has hired in order to get his father-in-law to pay a ransom. Then Lundegaard will have the money he needs-and nobody will get hurt! What could go wrong? [The UK drama Happy Valley, which I have written about previously, has more than a little in common with this story line, and I love it too for many of the same reasons.]

We might initially root for Lundegaard; after all, it seems he just can’t get ahead. But slowly we come to realize that he is not the salt-of-the-earth kind of simple, but the foolish kind. He shares with his father-in-law the quality of thinking himself smarter than other people. Lundegaard is a smooth talker, used to manipulating people into sketchy car-buying deals. Used to talking his way out of any scrape he finds himself in. Naturally, he assumes he can outsmart his father-in-law and the crooks to boot. But he completely underestimates both. Things do not go according to plan.

Margie Gunderson (Frances McDormand), the (pregnant) police chief of Brainerd, Minnesota, is called in to investigate the fallout from Lundegaard’s foolish plan. Margie is the second type of simple person: her “aw shucks” upper Midwestern accent and “Minnesota nice” manners easily lead people to underestimate her. But this flinty woman, with her burgeoning belly, waves of morning sickness, and massive appetite, one of the great female characters in film history, is not easily misled. She assumes the best in people, but she also is smart and digs deep. She is humble enough not to assume she knows everything. She is wise enough to value character more than appearance.

The erudite elite, the wealthy, and the powerful tend to underestimate real people like Margie, real people from the Midwest or a small town, assuming people like her are beneath them. The Margies of the world may not have big-city pedigree, wealth, fancy clothes, polished speech, or impressive degrees. But what they do have is a deep humility, honesty, connection to the practical realities of life, and a grasp on the beauty of commitment and morality.

Of course, lots of small town people assume all their community is made up of Margies, failing to notice the Lundegaards hiding beneath the “nice” veneer. Small town people easily underestimate the reality of evil in their people and in their own hearts. Even Margie falls prey to this way of thinking, saying upon finding murder victims, “I would be very surprised if our suspect was from Brainerd.”

But by the time the film comes to a close, our intrepid police chief has had two direct confrontations with our foolish car salesman and the wise-in-his-own-eyes has met his comeuppance.

For the waywardness of the simple will kill them,
    and the complacency of fools will destroy them.–Proverbs 1:32 NIV

I love how the film visualizes the great biblical theme of the lowly and unexpected being chosen and exalted, and the powerful and prideful being deposed. For me as a person of faith, that’s one of the most encouraging things about the God I worship. As the Jewish writer Abraham Heschel wrote, “Zeus is passionately interested in pretty female deities and becomes inflamed with rage against those who incite his jealousy. The God of Israel is passionately interested in widows and orphans.” I love that God is a God of justice–ultimate justice, if not immediate.

[God] has brought down rulers from their thrones
    but has lifted up the humble.
He has filled the hungry with good things
    but has sent the rich away empty.–Luke 1:52-53 NIV

Tomorrow I’ll share the last two reasons Fargo is my favorite film.

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